Damon Albarn and Terry Gilliam join forces to launch ENO campaign aimed at
proving opera is not "for the rich and successful and almost dead".

Damon Albarn and Terry Gilliam are leading a campaign to attract more young people to the opera, encouraging first-time attendees to wear jeans and trainers and promising them “club-style bars”.

The pair are the public faces of Undress for the Opera, a new scheme launched by the English National Opera which will introduce new audiences to La Traviata and Don Giovanni.

Ticket prices for special performances will be cheaper than usual - £25 for the best seats in the house, which can cost £100 on regular nights - and will include an invitation to a post-show party with cast and company members.

Bars at the London Coliseum will be transformed for the evening, with beer promotions and specially-themed cocktails.

Newcomers will also be able to download a synopsis of the opera beforehand, which comes with a tongue-in-cheek guide to opera etiquette written by Terry Gilliam.

Gilliam, the director and Monty Python member, staged his first opera at the ENO last year and joked that he would be happy for audience members to turn up in suits of armour.

"I thought opera was for a bunch of old farts - the bourgeoisie in dinner jackets. I thought it was an art form for the rich and successful and almost dead," he said.

"Thank God the English National Opera is housed in the Coliseum, because it's an old music hall and not an opera house. Another great thing about the English National Opera is that the operas are in English so there's no excuse for not turning up, English-speakers.

"A lot of people think you've got to dress to the nines but that's not true, especially at the English National Opera. Come in what you feel comfortable in."

Currently, 30 per cent of the ENO’s audience is aged under 44 but the ENO wants that figure to reach 40 per cent or above.

The organisation has recruited Albarn because the Blur star’s own foray into opera, Doctor Dee, attracted a younger demographic to the ENO - 60 per cent of attendees were opera novices.

Albarn said: "I'm quite clearly not someone who had any formal opera education and I've done it entirely instinctively. I was too busy jumping up and down on stages around the world when I should have been at college finishing my classical music education.

"It's the perception [of opera] that needs to change. We're carrying into this century ideas that belong to a previous generation."

Rufus Norris, Albarn's collaborator on Doctor Dee, said the word "opera" carried negative connotations for younger audiences but had much to offer.

He said: "The big difference between opera and a gig or a festival is a simple technical one: it's not amplified. You have a huge, live, acoustic musical experience with a story at its centre, and it's immensely powerful.

"There's something about the process which gives you a communion with what's happening on the stage."

The Undress for the Opera initiative will begin with four special performances, starting in November with Don Giovanni.

At each performance, 100 of the best seats in the house will be made available for £25. Registration opens today at www.eno.org/undressand applicants must state whether or not they have attended the opera before.

John Berry, ENO’s artistic director, said opera novices should not be afraid to take the plunge.

"There are lots of people who are put off by the way opera is presented - they think it’s too stuffy, too posh, too expensive," he said.

"People even have a problem with walking through the doors of a big institution. They feel they don't know enough about the art form to appreciate it.

"We're going to greet you when you come through the door, look after you and make sure you have a really fantastic evening."

Berry said Undress for the Opera is "a fun title for a subject we are very serious about" and stressed that it is not a "one-off outreach project" but a model for the future.

“We want to change the perception that ‘opera is not for me’.

“Young people like informality and we want to say that you don’t need ties or tiaras to enjoy opera at ENO," he said.